


Caught

by RENielsen



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, M/M, Police Station, Strangers, Vandalism, getting caught
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 12:31:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17787458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RENielsen/pseuds/RENielsen
Summary: “You think you’re gonna get grounded?” the boy then asks, looking thoughtful.Louis snorts loudly. “My mum is most likely gonna kill me as soon as she sees me.”“That’d be a shame, really.”





	Caught

Louis knows he’s fucked the moment his friend bails on him, leaving him behind to deal with the cops on his own. He’s got spray paint all over his hands, and there’s no way the cops won’t know he’s part of the reason that the school is now covered in colourful graffiti.

His feet hit the ground over and over again, running to make his way as far away from the loud sound of sirens closing in on him for every second passing. His heart starts beating even faster when the blue light from the police car is to be seen in the distance. _Fuck, fuck, FUCK!_ He’s so going to get caught. He strains himself and runs a bit faster even though he knows it won’t do him much good. He can barely catch his breath, and he’s starting to feel light headed. The car is so close to him. Just a little faster. He just needs to be a little faster.

Making a quick decision he makes a turn in between some buildings. Instead of the road continuing, he ends up in an alleyway. The blue light is right behind him, and the siren is overwhelmingly loud until it stops altogether.

A door opens and closes, and Louis gets blinded by a flashlight just as he turns around to admit defeat. The cop moves closer to him, and the flashlight moves from his face down his body, stopping for a moment by his hands, before the cop points it towards the ground.

“C’mon, kiddo, let’s get you to the station and call your parents,” the cop sighs after taking in the situation. He sounds like he thinks he’s got better things to do than arrest minors for stupid shit.

Louis considers for a moment to try and run once again. He thinks that he could most likely outrun the cop, but he wouldn’t stand a chance once the cop got back in his car. He probably won’t be quite as nice about it if he has to chase Louis down twice in one evening. He should just get in the car and let the cop call his mum. He’ll so much be grounded. Nothing is going to be worse than the disappointment from his mum, though, when she picks him up at the police station.

The cop is nice enough to just let him get in the back of the car without handcuffs or anything, but he probably doesn’t see Louis as that big of a threat anyways. The cop himself gets into the driver’s seat and starts driving towards the station. He stays quiet, and Louis is grateful for that. He doesn’t need anymore reprimands that the ones he’s going to get from his mum.

He’s sulking the whole way. He still can’t believe that Zayn would leave him to fend for himself, that jerk. They were supposed to be in this shit together.

It feels too loud when a phone starts ringing after having sat in complete silence for a few minutes. Being responsible, the cop pulls the car over and parks by the side of the road before taking the call. Louis can’t help but think that he probably shouldn’t be taking calls at all while on duty, but like whatever. That’s just so much longer before he has to face his mum, so maybe he should thank the man.

“Horan speaking,” the cop says into the phone without looking at the caller id. He hums and seems to soften up a little as the person on the other side starts speaking. “Won’t be long, no. Almost done with my shift now.” He listens for a bit before adding, “Yeah do that, might have to wait a bit. Shouldn’t be too long, though.”

Louis’ starting to tune out of the conversation as nothing interesting is really happening anyways. He assumes it’s the cop’s wife or something like that. It’s not like it’s any of his business anyways. He still catches it when the cop mentions him.

“Got a kid in the back of the car. Gotta drive him to the station and get in contact with his parents. Mmhhm? I don’t know.” Horan meets his eyes in the rear-view mirror, looking thoughtful. “Like fifteen maybe?”

“Seventeen!” Louis splutters offended, quickly catching that the cop is trying to guess his age. The man just ignores him, but there’s a slight pull on his lips as a small smile shows. Louis thinks he can hear laughter on the other end of the phone, but maybe he’s imagining that.

“You can’t seriously be asking that!” the cop then protests into the phone. Listening to the person on the other end, the cop sighs, and Louis can see him roll his eyes in the mirror. “How should I know that? Fine, alright.” Horan turns a bit in his seat and really looks Louis down. “My son wants to know if you’re cute.”

What? Louis blinks, once, twice, not knowing what to say. He then blurts out, “I want to say yes, Sir.”

It makes the cop laugh really hard. He has to take a moment before he delivers the message to his son while still laughing. Louis feels somewhat pleased with himself, but at the same time also incredible insecure about the whole situation. Can’t say that this is a conversation he expected to have with a cop after being arrested for vandalism.

“Yeah, kiddo, see you in a bit,” he says before ending the call.

Horan doesn’t really engage Louis in conversation after that, and instead just starts driving once again. They’re at the police station within a couple of minutes, and the cop gets out of the car first, and then opens the door for Louis as well. He grips Louis’ arm lightly, and friendly enough steers him towards the station, while at the same time making sure that Louis doesn’t try to run off. Louis doesn’t even really see the point anymore.

Horan leads him inside and makes him sit down on a chair by one of the desks inside. The cop wanders around and sits down on the opposite side of Louis. He makes Louis tell him his name, who he lives with, the name and phone number of his mum after finding out that he lives with her. He tries to make Louis tell him if anyone was with him, but even though Zayn was an arse, then Louis ain’t no snitch. He keeps questioning Louis for a while, but Louis only tells him what’s necessary. Eventually, he leaves Louis sitting there, while he goes to call Louis’ mum.

For a while, he just sits there waiting, but eventually, he gets too fidgety and starts snooping around to see if the cop has anything interesting on his desk.  Setting down into the chair the cop was sitting in before, Louis looks over the desk. There’re too many stacks of paperwork, none of which look all that interesting. A couple of pens here and there, a block of paper with a couple of pages ripped out, a turned off computer. The only thing that seems somewhat interesting is the photo frames on the corner of the table. Louis picks up both of the frames. The first seems old and is obviously a family picture. The cop has got his arms around a woman who’s holding a small child in her arms, and there’s a kid that looks around five or six standing in front of them. They’re all smiling brightly. The other picture seems newer. It’s what Louis assumes are the two kids, though now a lot more grown up. One of them looks around Louis’ age, and Louis wonders if that’s the boy Horan was talking to over the phone.

Someone clears their throat, and Louis almost drops the picture frames on the desk, which could have ended badly. He expects for the cop to be back and for the scolding to start, but when he looks up it’s the kid from the picture. Blond hair that looks like it’s been dyed as the roots are a dark brown colour, blue eyes that look at him cautiously, but also with curiosity. His pale skin is slightly flushed. The clothes he’s wearing is way too big, but he looks adorable none the less.

“Don’t think you’re supposed to be sitting there,” the boy says, smiling at Louis like he doesn’t even care. His crooked teeth show when he smiles at Louis, but Louis can’t really make himself pay any mind to it, not when the smile also shows a bit of a dimple on his cheeks. The boy sits down on the chair Louis is supposed to be sitting in, and without a care, he puts his feet up on the table like he’s done it a million times before. He’s obviously been here a lot of times before, and Louis doubts very much that it’s ever been because of him being in trouble.

“So, what did you do?” he asks. “Da didn’t really explain anything.”

“Who says I did anything?” Louis grumbles in return, mostly because he doesn’t really want to admit to the mess he’s made for himself. Not when the boy in front of him is quite cute, and from what Louis could gather from the phone call then also very much interested in guys.

“The guilty look on your face, and the fact that you’ve literally been caught red-handed,” the boy laughs, nodding towards Louis’ hands. The spray paint on his hands are mostly black, but there’s a bit of red there too. Gosh…

“Could be an artist,” Louis says putting on a big smile, though it feels a bit forced even to him.

“The illegal kind?”

“Shut up!”

The boy just laughs at him, but he doesn’t keep asking questions either, so Louis takes that as a win. He doesn’t need another interrogation tonight, especially not from the son of the cop that did the first one. This whole thing is ridiculous! He kinda wants the lad to leave him alone, but mostly because this isn’t the most ideal situation to flirt with a cute boy.

Realising that he’s still sitting with the picture frames in his hands, Louis quickly puts them back in their place, with the boy watching his every move.

“You think you’re gonna get grounded?” the boy then asks, looking thoughtful.

Louis snorts loudly. “My mum is most likely gonna kill me as soon as she sees me.”

“That’d be a shame, really.”

“Oh yeah? Why?” This is Louis’ mess after all, and he sees no reason that the boy should care at all.

The boy lets his head rest against his hand, head tilted to the side. He watches Louis, pulling a face like he’s thinking about something. Louis can’t stop himself from averting his eyes, feeling so damn self-conscious under the boy’s watchful eyes. If Louis believed in any supernatural things, then he’d be so convinced that the boy is reading his mind right now. Luckily for him, that’s not a thing he has to actually worry about.

It takes way too long before he bothers to respond Louis at all, but when he finally does Louis’ whole face becomes a bright red colour. “Because you weren’t lying when you said you’re cute.”

Louis opens his mouth to respond, but before he can let a single word out of his mouth he hears his mothers voice clearly from the other side of the room.

“LOUIS WILLIAM TOMLINSON!” He flinches as the words are being yelled at him. He’s got so many regrets right now. This whole thing seemed like a much better idea before he got caught. Maybe he really won’t survive the night after all.

Luckily for him then Horan stops her before she can actually come over and kill him. She still looks mad as hell when the cop calmly starts talking to her, Louis assumes about him and why they’re here.

“Definitely won’t survive the night,” the boy giggles, looking over at Louis’ mum and his own dad.

“Thanks for the encouragement,” Louis sulks.

“But…” the boy sits up in his chair and puts his feet back on the ground. He somehow manages to look both really shy and very confident at the same time. “In case you do, you should call me some time.”

Louis wants to say something smart in return, but somehow, he can’t think of a single thing to say. His brain is frozen up and the only thing coming through is the happy little yell inside that acknowledges what the boy just said to him. He wants him, Louis of all people, to call him. And that’s despite everything he knows about Louis after tonight.

“Yes,” he just ends up saying. He scrambles for his phone, unlocks it and holds it out for the boy to take. Gosh, he doesn’t even know the boy’s name. He doesn’t know _anything at_ all about the boy, really. This is ridiculous.

The boy takes the phone, though, and puts in his number. When he hands it back to Louis the first thing Louis sees is the text the boy sent to himself just saying hey. The second thing is the boy’s name. Niall. It’s nice, fits better to the boy than anything else Louis could have come up with himself.

Niall smiles at him, and it’s the best feeling in the world. It doesn’t really matter that it’s ridiculous, or that they’ve only known each other for a couple of minutes because Louis already likes him. He likes his smile, and he likes the banter, and he likes that Niall thinks he’s cute too. He hopes it’s enough for now.

His mum and the cop come up to the two of them then. She doesn’t look murderous anymore, but that doesn’t mean she won’t be as soon as they’re left alone. The cop ruffles Niall’s hair and is clearly happier to see his son than Louis’ mum is right now.

“C’mon, Lou, we can leave now,” she says. Louis has never seen her look as displeased as she does at this moment. The frown on her face and the look in her eyes says it all. She’s still mad as hell.

“Bye!” Niall calls after them, as Louis is dragged out by his hand. He waves back at Niall and sees how the boy laughs just before the door is being closed behind them. It’s cold outside after having been inside the station for a while.

“I’m sorry,” he says, looking everywhere but at his mum. She just sighs in return, like she doesn’t even know how to respond. It’s worse somehow than getting yelled at as he’d expected. Louis doesn’t handle her being mad at him very well, but this quiet disappointment is even worse. It’s first when they’re in the car, and almost home that she finally does say something to him. It breaks his heart a little when she does.

“We can’t afford to pay the fine, Louis. I don’t know what you were thinking. I’m already taking as many hours at the hospital that I can.”

“Mum,” he starts, but he doesn’t know how to end. He knows is the thing. Knows how hard she works every day to keep them all fed and with a roof over their heads. She’s got more people to think about than just Louis.

“Promise me that this won’t happen again. I don’t want to see you locked away half of your life because of dumb shit. Okay?”

“I promise. I’ll get a job. Pay of the fine myself. You won’t have to think about it. I promise that too.”

She smiles at him, but he can see that she doesn’t really believe it. Louis can be stubborn when he wants to be, though, and he’ll keep the promise. This is his mess, and she won’t have to pay for the consequences. And he’s done too, getting up to shit with Zayn. If this is the outcome, then it’s not worth it. Don’t know why he ever thought it would be.

He’ll make it work now, though. He has to somehow.

None of them says anything more the rest of the drive home. She doesn’t even scold him anymore at all, and just sends him to bed when they get home. The punishment will probably come in the morning, but Louis will pretend for tonight that it won’t.

It’s late, so he gets ready for bed, brushes his teeth and gets dressed in his pyjamas. Getting into bed, Louis ignores a text message from Zayn and plays a game on his phone instead for a bit until his eyes start to feel heavy.

Louis gets a text just as he’s about to fall asleep. It’s from Niall, and Louis can’t help but smile when he sees it. Luckily his mum didn’t think of taking his phone away from him. He reads the text a couple of times before answering. Knows that he’s not lying when he says the words.

_Can’t wait to tell the story of how we met. “Oh yeah, my dad arrested him. Asked if he was cute, he said yes. Never even asked for my name, wanted him to call me anyway.”_

_Call you tomorrow. And the day after that too x_

_Deal. Night x_

_Sweet dreams x_


End file.
